


Wait For Me

by Enchantable



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell, Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Crash Fest 2019, Drama & Romance, M/M, Mutual Pining, Roswellprompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-05-31 17:10:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19430413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enchantable/pseuds/Enchantable
Summary: The fog is stifling.“Are you looking for Michael?”Alex nods.“He’s gone,” says the voice.“Gone where?”“With Death.”





	Wait For Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alexmanes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexmanes/gifts).



> This is for @alexmanes in honor of @roswellprompts‘s crashfest! It involves malex, kylex and maribel as requested and then I went a little wild with Orpheus and Eurydice lore. Specifically from the musical Hadestown because Alex and Michael seemed to fit the roles perfectly and everything else fell into place. @alexmanes I hope you enjoy and I am so glad you are in the malex fandom!

The fog is stifling.

“Are you looking for Michael?”

Alex nods.

“He’s gone,” says the voice.

“Gone where?”

“With Death.”

Alex freezes, the guitar is suddenly very heavy. The song feel like it’s slipped away. Winter is cold, it’s always cold, but now it’s bitter as he looks around. Instead of Michael’s bright smile and curls, there’s a tall man with tanned skin and broad shoulders. He’s dressed like Death and a rich man you would see on the street. Alex feels dirty next to him, even before he falls to his knees and stares into the fog where Michael went.

“I can tell you how to get to him.”

Alex looks up from his misery and over at the god who stands there. Messenger, he’s a messenger and a trickster. Never what he seems, Alex knows the stories. Alex knows not to trust him. But he said he can tell him how to get to Michael. Alex has to get to him, he has to explain. If Michael understands then maybe he’ll want to come back with him, maybe he’ll want to come home. The fact that means Alex has to go into the underworld and face down Death himself seems to be an equally monumental task. Convincing Michael and facing down death. He figures that since they both seem equally monumental there’s no use in getting worried over either.

“Why would you help me?” He asks.

The god shrugs his broad shoulders. Alex doesn’t look away like he knows he’s supposed to. Everything is wrong from what it’s supposed to be. He’s supposed to be with his Michael, they are supposed to be dreaming of their future. Instead he’s alone with a messenger trickster god and Michael is long, long gone. What he’s not expecting is for the trickster to reach down and give him a hand up off the cold tracks that lead into the fog and to where Michael is. Alex takes the god’s hand. This is a compromise he can do. The god helps him to his feet.

“Let’s just say I love a good song,” he says, “the question is how far are you willing to go for him?”

“Anywhere,” Alex says.

The god smiles.

He tells him how to get to where Michael is. Things Alex is not supposed to know. It seems like a lot for a good song. Though there was a time a few hours ago when Alex would have trusted his music to do anything. Now he isn’t sure. His faith has been fractured. But if the way to the dead is an acceptable trade for a song, then maybe his music is an acceptable price for Michael. No it is an acceptable price and Alex believes in music the way some believe in gods. More, actually, since the gods are right there.

“I’ll be watching,” the god says.

“Why?”

“I love a good story too.”

Alex nods and shoulders his guitar, making his way towards the fog.

“Hey, what should i call you? In the song?” Alex asks.

“Magoo,” the god says, “its what my father calls me.”

He’s worked stranger things onto a song.god tells him, “that’s what my father calls me.”

Alex has worked stranger things into songs.

He follows the god who likes to be called Magoo’s instructions. He makes his way along the path, through the fog that’s so thick he can’t see a hand in front of his face. He bribes the dogs and denies he has any name as he makes his way deeper and deeper. On faith, he supposes, if he walked back along the same way he’d find himself back where he was, but the truth is that it’s not where he wants to be. He wants to be with Michael, wherever that is. _Wait_ , he prays. _Wait for me, I’m coming_.

The fog says nothing and no-one he encounters wishes to do anything but stop him.

But he pushes on. He may have nothing but a song, but he forces himself to keep going. A song is nothing compared to the loss of the one he loves. So he keeps walking, one foot in front of the other. It feels like he’s walking on a river, sometimes. Though he can feel the solid ground under his feet, his boots disappear in the fog as he goes. He’s glad that if he has no money, his guitar has survived worse than this. But the entire way, he keeps his hand on the belly of the instrument. Despite knowing that he isn’t supposed to make noise, he starts humming. The song he was working on, the song for Michael, he didn’t finish it but he was so close. Music won him the boy, did it cost him the boy as well?

He makes it past the guards, past the dogs and after a lifetime of humming and walking, he makes it where he wants to go.

Now he just needs to find Michael.

He sees him before Michael turns. It’s impossible to miss him. He’s still warm and golden, still shining with the world that Alex left behind. The dirt is smudged on him but he uses his tools well. Of course he does. Michael has always been good with his hands. He works off from the others, but Alex waits until he’s moving to the next section, farther away still. Where no-one can hear them. He watches as Michael’s features crack and all he can think is how Michael doesn’t belong in this place. Not like this.

“Come home with me,” he says.

Michael’s entire body stiffens and he turns, his features breaking in surprise.

“It’s you,” he breathes.

  
“It’s me,” Alex confirms.

“Alex—“

They close the distance, colliding into one another. He doesn’t think he’s ever been held so tight in his entire life. Michael is still as warm as he was up there. Warmer, he’s always been warm. Alex grips the back of his overalls and clings to him. He thanks every god, even the strange ones, for their help in finding Michael as soon as he did. That he found him at all.

“How did you get here?” Michael demands.

“I walked,” Alex says.

“You walked?” He repeats and looks over his shoulder, as if he can see how far away it is, “all this way?” Alex nods, “why?”

“Come home with me,” Alex repeats, “Michael, come back with me.”

Michael hugs him again.

Alex wraps his arms around him, swept up in the feeling that Michael is in his arms rather than his lack of reply. It’s going to be okay. It has to be okay. Michael is here in his arms. That’s the only thing that matters. Except far too soon Michael pulls back. Alex grips him tightly and doesn’t let him go. He can’t. Michael looks down and away and anywhere but at him.

“What is it?” Alex pleads, “come home with me, we can be together. We can figure this out.”

“He can’t leave.”

They turn to see the god Magoo standing there, looking almost regretful. He sighs and tucks his hands into the pockets of his long coat. Michael looks down as if he wants to go lower and Alex pulls him close.

  
“What do you mean, he can’t leave?” He repeats. He loos at the man in his arms, “Michael?”

“I can’t leave,” he says, “I signed a contract. I belong here.”

“The hell you do.”

The words slip out of his mouth so fast and so hard that even Michael looks surprised. Alex wonders what he did to make Michael think he would just accept this, but he refuses to do it any longer. If this is his chance to prove to Michael that he is here for him, that he is coming home, then he’s going to do it. He’s not giving up Michael without a hell of a fight, not after he slipped away when Alex didn’t notice. He turns to the god.

“What do I have to do?” He asks.

“Alex, no—“

“Yes,” he says, turning back to him, “you’re coming home with me,” he repeats, “we’re going home.”

“Good luck with that.”

Alex turns to see Isobel saunter by, hair still tangled with flowers. Barely alive, but alive none the less. It hasn’t been that long since fall, it’s just felt like a lifetime since Michael slipped away. Isobel towers over them and turns her gaze to them, looking at the three in rapid succession. Alex feels Michael pull back but he refuses to let go until Michael shakes him off and goes to the goddess.

“What’s he doing here?” She asks.

“He came after me,” Michael explains.

“It’s little late for that,” she says in that beautiful and cruel way of hers, “but it’s a little late for a lot of things around here,” she sighs, looking at Michael, “don’t feel too bad, my wife loves pretty young things.”

“She love you,” Michael says, “and you love her.”

Isobel scoffs.

  
“That was a long time ago,” she looks at the pair of them, “you’ll see one day how things are down here,” she looks at Alex, “or one of you will.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Alex says and cups Michael’s cheeks.

“She’s right.”

“No she’s not,” he says, “look at me, she’s not. I’m here. We’re going home.”

Michael looks at him silently and Alex can tell he doesn’t believe him. Alex refuses to let his stomach drop. He refuses to let Michael down. He kisses him, even though he shouldn’t, even though it means he can begin to feel the cold seeping into Michael’s skin. He kisses him like he can breathe life back into him. Like he can put his own warmth in the man. Michael hesitates only a moment before kissing him back, and Alex can almost taste the guilt on his lips.

“It’s not going to work,” Isobel chimes in.

“Please, let me try,” Alex says.

Michael grips him tighter.

Isobel looks over at the god who likes to be called Magoo and shrugs.

“Good luck.”

Death goes by the name Maria. Her tongue is sharp and if Alex had to pick a god to believe in, it would probably be her. She drapes across her throne and refuses to look at her wife when she brings them to her. She arches an eyebrow at Michael’s disobedience and curls her lip at the god who likes to be called Magoo and then focuses on Alex. Michael, he came for Michael. He focuses on that with every fibre of his being and not on how inadequate he feels in her presence. Everything here, it’s hers. This world of stability and being full, of being warm and knowing where you belong. It fits, it’s monochromatic but it fits in a way that is against everything that makes Alex who he is.

“You’re trespassing,” she says, looking from him to her wife.

“I know,” Alex says.

“I could have you killed for it,” she reminds him.

Alex swallows the retort that he now knows there are things worse than death.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Isobel snaps, sitting in her own throne. Maria glances at her wife. It would be cursory save for how she shifts her posture, “he loves him,” Maria rolls her eyes.

“That’s not a crime,” Magoo points out.

“When he’s trespassing it is.”

Magoo looks at him, then at the gods and Alex sees his cue. He brings the guitar forward. Hope flares on Michael’s face. The rest of them look with varying degrees of interest. Even when Alex’s faith is shaken, the rest of the world hangs on his every note. It isn’t his love story he needs to reach for though. It’s the one between the two gods in front of him. He has to bring hope to this most hopeless place. Music is the only way he knows how to do that. He half wishes his fingers felt incompetent as he curves them around the neck of the instrument and a world that doesn’t breathe seems to hold its breath.

He sings.

An incredible thing happens when he does, it’s always been this way.

He plays and the world listens.

He plays and the world believes.

As he plays Death relaxes and Spring surrenders to her emotions. Magoo goes peaceful and the shame leaves Michael’s eyes. The others around pause as well, all listening to the world his music allows them to see. When Alex opens his eyes, Maria is upright and Isobel has turned to look at her. As the last notes fade, Maria looks back at her. And for the first time since it was shaken, Alex feels the first fleeting feelings of hope.

“Leave us,” Maria says. Alex reaches for Michael’s hand, “he stays,” Death snaps, “you. Wait outside.”

Alex looks at Michael desperately, and Michael clenches his hands by his side to keep from reaching back. Any chance of this working, it requires them to have Death on their side. So Alex has no choice but to step back and out into the fog. Even that, though, seems lighter somehow. He waits. He waits and fights not to sing the whole time. He waits and then finally the god who likes to be called Magoo steps out and looks at him. Alex tries to crane his neck but he can’t see in the place where ehe just came from.

“What did she say?” He asks.

“You can leave,” the god says, “and you can have Michael,” Alex chokes on the hope that floods him until Magoo holds up a hand, “but you must walk back and not turn. If you turn and look at him, he stays here.”

“What?” Alex frowns, “but how will I know if he’s with me?”

The bargain goes against everything he thinks. Alex loves chaos, but faith in things besides from his music are not easy to come by. He’s never had them. Maybe that has always been his fatal flaw. He believed in Michael too late, he believed in them too late. Even now the idea of just accepting this bargain is baffling to him. Even if it means that he will have Michael back.

“You won’t,” Magoo says, “but if you trust him as much as you claim to, you should believe that he is.”

“I trust Michael,” Alex says, “I don’t trust Death.”

“Do you have a choice?”

Alex realizes he doesn’t.

He’s got no choice but to accept this proposal, which makes him feel sick. But all he can do is nod. Magoo smiles and points into the fog. It’s the direction that he’s to walk in. His throat tightens. He doesn’t even get to see Michael before he starts out. He just has to go. Sometimes, he supposes, this is how the world ends. With a whimper. And whether or not a new one is born out of the ashes depends on faith. Alex takes a deep breath and turns towards the way Magoo points.

“You let them go,” Spring says.

“I gave them a chance,” Death corrects.

Magoo watches the fog swallow them whole.

A chance is something.


End file.
